Talk:Rhenish Republic

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The Rhenish Republic episode does not figure in the conciousness of most English readers. I remember (dimly) that it got a brief mention in a seminar that I attended in (approx) 1976, but what I chiefly remember from that is the apparent misuse of the word republic: it seemed / seems to me that it wasn't so much a republic as a set of aspirations born of the dismal situation in the Rhineland in 1923.

So I'm not sure there exists such a thing as an Anglo-American perspective on the subject. I've started an article based on the Wikipedia equivalents in French and German. I expect to extend it starting from (and probably for the most part ending with) my translations of these, unless someone better versed than I wants to compose a more learned article from the anglophone perspective: so I'll try and hold off revisiting it for a bit in case any specialist out there is tempted to improve on my 'kicking off....'Charles01 14:28, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Nice work. These states do indeed get little mention in English. - 52 Pickup 09:53, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for reading it and for your thoughts, 52 Pickup. Actually, I'm not sure I buy in to your idea of the Rhenish Republic as a former country. Have you ... how can I put this politely ... actually read the articles - either the German one or my English adaptation of it? (Or indeed the French one which is much shorter?) The point, surely, is that it was an idea that never became a country (at least in anything approaching the form envisaged by Dorten and Adenauer and all the others back in the 1920s). I shall be interested to see if anyone else has any thoughts on this, now that you have highlighted the subject. History is taught and understood very much according to the nation state in which you grew up, and German history from this period is little known in the English speaking countries. As a pious aspiration I do think that the wiki project, as an international one, has the potential to create a slightly more objective international consensus over what happened when and why and which bits matter if they do and ... all that sort of stuff. 'Objective' is a lovely adjective, of course, and describes a fine aspiration. I appreciate that full historical objectivity is no more attainable than full and legitimate democracy. But that risks a digression and meantime we keep on dreaming. RegardsCharles01 10:18, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I know that it isn't a former country. The Extraordinary subsection of the WPFC project deals with any former pseudo-states or non-states (eg. provisional governments, exiled governments, unrecognized states, former seperatist movements, even former ideas for states - such as this one) and is working on how to improve their content, accessibility, and placement within the larger context. Maybe I should clarify that a bit more within the project banner. So I share your desire to take this entry and palce it into a more global context. The same can be said for the other short-lived separatist states during the Weimar period (Bavarian Socialist Republic, Friestaat Flaschenhals, etc.). - 52 Pickup 10:37, 3 May 2007 (UTC)